Motiva Enterprises halted the restart of the large crude distillation unit at the biggest US refinery, its 603,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, plant, on Monday afternoon, said two sources familiar with plant operations. The restart was stopped after problems developed in the flow of crude oil within the 325,000-bpd VPS-5 CDU, the largest of three CDUs at the refinery, the sources said.

Motiva was working to correct the flow problems and resume the restart, the sources said. Prior to the malfunction, VPS-5 was scheduled to resume production by the end of this week. The unit performed well when placed on circulation over the weekend.

The CDU was shut in early February as part of a planned overhaul of several production units including 110,000-bpd Delayed Coking Unit-2, which is scheduled to restart early next week. The refinery was also restarting the 85,000-bpd catalytic reformer on Monday.

Motiva restarted the 115,000-bpd naphtha hydrotreater at the refinery on Thursday, the sources said. The overhaul was the first for VPS-5 after it began sustained production in 2013 following eight months of piping repairs from chemical corrosion that occurred two months after the CDU's initial start-up in April 2012. VPS-5, DCU-2, the naphtha hydrotreater and the reformer were all added to the refinery in a $10 billion expansion project that was completed in 2012 and more than doubled the refinery's crude oil processing capacity.

CDUs do the primary refining of crude oil and provide hydrocarbon feedstock to all other production units. Cokers increase the amount of feedstock to make motor fuels and convert residual crude to petroleum coke. Reformers convert refining byproducts into octane-boosting components blended into gasoline. Hydrotreaters remove sulfur from motor fuels and their feedstocks in compliance with US environmental rules.

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